Soufiane Rahimi: Al Ain's hat-trick hero rises to the occasion once again

As the big blue machine rumbled into the Garden City last night , Al Ain’s players and supporters might have been forgiven for feeling an acute sense of foreboding. The visitors for the latest colossal night of AFC Champions League Elite entertainment were Al Hilal, the double-winning champions of Saudi Arabia who are currently on a 43-match unbeaten run in their home league. Even Hernan Crespo, the manager of Al Ain - the actual reigning champions of the continent - acknowledges that Hilal are “the best team in Asia”. The make up of their squad is a clue to the fact they are supported by lavish riches. Watching them warm up ahead of the game at the Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium was like seeing a finely-tuned unit of footballing ubermensch getting ready for business. There was Aleksandr Mitrovic, who, despite only turning 30 last month, already has the best part of 300 career goals to his name, 59 of which are at international level. His Serbia national team colleague, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic was regarded as one of the leading midfielders in Italy before swapping Serie A for the Saudi Pro League. Home heroes like Mohammed Kanno and Salem Al Dawsari, the Saudi legend and Hilal captain who was Asia’s player of the year in 2022, were there. There was Ruben Neves, a midfielder so good he can hold down a place in a Portugal line-up which might just be the starriest team in international football. And his compatriot, Joao Cancelo, who is so talented he managed to claim separate league winner medals – in England and Germany – on consecutive weekends a couple of seasons ago. Plus, just at the edge of the rondo, doing some keepy-uppies to keep himself entertained, there was a lesser-spotted player called Neymar . For their part, Al Ain had Soufiane Rahimi. Which made things about even. While Hilal might be Asia’s champions elect, it is Al Ain who have the trophy to show for it at present. And for that, they have the mighty Rahimi to thank. The Moroccan forward has a base level that is above the vast majority of players in the game. And when the stakes are at their highest, like on a moody Champion League night against one of his team’s greatest rivals, he manages to find a turbo sport mode that is impossible to resist. Against Hilal, he clicked into gear immediately. In the opening exchanges, he saw a decent claim for a penalty turned down. Moments later, he had the ball in the net, only for it to be ruled out for offside. VAR was invoked to adjudicate on a potential red card after he was fouled by Kalidou Koulibaly, the former Napoli and Chelsea defender who had the unenviable task of marking Rahimi. As Hilal gradually gained control of the game, it was Rahimi who dragged the home team back into, first levelling in the 39th minute, then reducing the arrears to one in the 69th. He scorer a penalty which he had won himself in the sixth minute of injury time, and was still fighting against the inevitable when the referee eventually blew the whistle on a crazy night after 12 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the 90. His hat-trick against Hilal means he now has 17 goals in 16 games in Asia's Champions League. Those goals have bookended a summer in which he was the leading scorer in the Olympic Games in Paris, as Morocco took the bronze medal. His exploits have unsurprisingly won him plenty of admirers from across the border in Saudi. But he spurned all advances and, at the start of this season, signed a new deal to keep him at Al Ain instead. The club – and UAE football in general – should be thankful for it. We have a genuine star in our midst. “He deserves this moment,” Crespo said of his star centre forward. “He deserves this because he works very hard for moment like this. “But it is not only now. Since I have been here [Crespo was appointed Al Ain manager in November 2023] he has always been like this, and we are really proud of him. “We need to hold him in that position and try to support him. He is a worker, and works very hard for this moment.” Despite his excellence, and the resistance Al Ain put up in their 5-4 loss to Hilal on a thrilling night, it is possible Rahimi and Co could fail to advance in the defence of their trophy. The result means they have lost two and drawn one of their first three matches in the newly revamped competition. That means they are second from last in the 12-team group for West Asia, with the top eight teams set to progress to the knockout phase. They have five matches to try to rectify the issue, and Crespo is confident they can do so. “A hundred percent,” Crespo said, when asked if he believes they will make the last 16. “There are a lot of very tough matches, but until the mathematics tell me no, I still believe. In this moment, we are one point less than qualification. “We have five matches left. If you see, the very difficult teams will be the next two [Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr, then Al Ahli Saudi] then after that we have three games when, Inshallah, we can claim a lot of points. “Until the mathematics tell me no, I am still believing. With this character and this performance [we can do] more.”

Soufiane Rahimi: Al Ain's hat-trick hero rises to the occasion once again

Moroccan forward was brilliant during the narrow Asian Champions League defeat to Al Hilal